


Shadow of War

by nothinbuttherain



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Little bit of angst, Pre-Relationship, Season 3, projected canon, sunset fic, tiny bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 05:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5773492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothinbuttherain/pseuds/nothinbuttherain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: based loosely on the above sunset scene from one of the season 3 trailers; Abby and Marcus manage to steal a moment alone while visiting Polis as the sun sinks before them. </p>
<p>Teaser: “Allowing the smile to come this time as she glances over and catches his eye,” Sorry,” she says, nudging gently against him in an affectionate gesture to let him know she means it, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” </p>
<p>“You didn’t,” he assures her hastily, a warm smile she knows from experience to be genuine brushing his lips, though not quite spreading fully to his eyes, she notices, as he still looks a little strained.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow of War

The great tower thrusts up from the belly of the Earth like a spear pushed through it towards the sky. Abby contemplates it thoughtfully as she gazes up to its peak that seems to hover somewhere in the clouds. It seems almost too big to be real. The size and scale and grandeur of Polis, the Grounder’s capital, had taken them all aback the first time they saw it, and though they’ve been guests here for almost a week now, she still hasn’t quite gotten used to it.

Strange, she thinks, as she begins to climb the twisted stair case that cuts through the heart of the spire with a grim determination, to have been born and grown up and lived almost her entire life cradled among the stars she now looks up at each night, nestled between whole, huge planets that looked no bigger than child’s toys at certain angles, yet this single tower seems unimaginable in size.

Maybe that was why. While she’d grown up surrounded by almost limitless, infinite space, the Ark itself had been small and confined, built for efficiency not aesthetic or to impress. Everywhere she ever thought she could possibly go in her lifetime she could go in a few days. There was no potential for expansion, for exploration, for adventure, the same bland corridors, the same rooms, the same compartments repeated over and over again, never changing, ever stagnant, a permanent source of frustration with the taste of fresh air and the sound of rain pattering against the leaves over her head confined to books and films and idle fantasy.

Everything she encountered on the Ark from the station itself to the cookie-cutter compartments down to the furniture had been built with efficiency in mind and little else. It almost didn’t seem possible then, coming from that world; that humans could, or _would_ build the kind of structures they had on Earth.

A part of her wishes, for the merest flicker of a heartbeat, that she had no obligations or ties here, that she could just leave, travel, explore this new world for as long as she was able. The mad fantasy passes after only a few seconds, despite the fierce strength with which it initially tore through her, but a faint longing for it still lingers in her soul, the aftertaste of the dream.

By the time she reaches the top of the tightly spiralling staircase the sun has sunk low in the horizon, gilding the sky and, as far as she can see, the whole world laid out before her beyond its peak, painting all a rich gold shot here and there with deeper shades of orange and crimson.

In that instant all they’ve been through, all it took them to come here and then to survive has been worth it, to be able to stand here and see what she thought existed only in dreams.

A particularly sharp twinge of pain from her thigh interrupts her musings and drags her, none too gently, back to reality. The long climb up the sheer, steep steps has left her legs stiff and aching from cramps. While the deep cuts carved into her body at Mount Weather have finally healed the time that had taken, almost all of it spent in her bed, means that she still has some work to do in order to return her muscles to their former strength.

The long, cruel climb was clearly too much too soon, the path up here being utterly unforgiving to her weakness. It irritates her, though rationally she knows she should have expected it, that some part of them still has some hold over her. Shivering she tries to brush those thoughts away and refocus herself.

Despite the pain throbbing through her legs, she thinks that the views will make it worthwhile. Taking the time she needs to rest and recover she then heads off around the tower, looking for the reason she’d come here in the first place.

Her first thought upon seeing it had been a lighthouse, the kind she’d seen in books and in old films on the Ark. She supposes it’s close enough, but built to signal to people instead of ships, its purpose, as Lincoln had explained when they had first seen it still a day away from the city, to communicate with the many Grounder villages scattered through the forests around them.

In spite of its immense height, the top of the tower isn’t large and it takes her less than five minutes to find him. When she does, she pauses for a moment in the doorway, leaning against the frame, she watches him in silence.

He’s standing with his back to her, facing the great, expansive world spread out before him, fallen at his feet, blazing in the light from the setting sun. Only the supporting pillars at either end, and his slim, upright silhouette impede her view but she doesn’t mind.

After another long moment drenched in silence and loaded tension he can’t feel yet she begins to study the man instead of the sprawling mountain ranges beyond him. He’s rigid with a tautness that seems to run bone deep and she can see it in the way he’s holding himself and the painfully tight way his muscles are contracting.

There’s more to him coming all the way up here than a pleasant view, she’s sure.

She knows him, knows some things about him will never change in spite of everything else doing just that and this practice she recognises well from the Ark. He’s isolated himself from the Grounder city below them, thrumming and pulsing with life as it is, like a giant, sentient beast, alive in its own right, swallowing them up, because he craved peace and quiet and time. Time to himself, time to think, time to let whatever problem she can see devouring his mind gnaw away at him in the freedom of this privacy.

He’s on edge, in a way that’s visible to her and even though she accepts that she knows him better than most and might catch signals others could miss or ignore or brush off, the source of his distress must be serious for him to be so outwardly concerned about it.

Thinking it can only do him good to distract him from this, if only for a moment, she moves closer to him, no longer content to remain feet away, hovering in the door, a feeling she’s been experiencing more and more often lately; the desire to be near him.

Padding up behind him she says, “I thought I’d find you up here,” suppressing a smile at the way he jumps in response to her interruption, startled out of his reverie, she nods a greeting to him as she steps up alongside him.

Allowing the smile to come this time as she glances over and catches his eye,” Sorry,” she says, nudging gently against him in an affectionate gesture to let him know she means it, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You didn’t,” he assures her hastily, a warm smile she knows from experience to be genuine brushing his lips, though not quite spreading fully to his eyes, she notices, as he still looks a little strained.

Then, without warning, consternation flickers across his face, prompted no doubt by the sight wince of discomfort she had tried and evidently failed to completely hide from him. His tone is stern and worried when he chastises, “You shouldn’t have come all the way up here alone. It’s the definition of overdoing things.”

His hand reaches out automatically and ghosts gently down the top of her arm, ready to grip onto her and support her if she needs him to and she can already feel him moving protectively closer to her as he asks with quiet concern, “Are they hurting badly?” gesturing to her legs to be sure she takes his meaning.

“A little”, she admits grudgingly, knowing better than to try and boldly lie and tell him they’re fine, “But it was worth it to find you,” she says without thinking, feeling a faint flush creep into her cheeks as she adds quickly, “That and the view,” pointing out at the scenery sprawling in front of them.

A steady silence descends over them like a veil as they stand side-by-side together, taking in the breathtaking vista stretching out, seemingly endlessly before them. After a moment and without turning away to look at her, Marcus says in a thick, oddly constrained voice, “It looks as though the whole world is on fire from up here.”

The sun sinking slowly beneath the distant horizon is still casting a dark, ruddy orange glow across the usually green expanse of wild, creeping forest surrounding them like an ocean. A part of her understands his sentiment and sends a shiver crawling like ice water down her spine in sympathy with it; the rest of her whispers softly, “I thought it looked beautiful.”

That finally makes him tear his gaze away from the landscape to look down at her by his side instead. A long, rather pregnant pause unfolds between them before he breaks it to say softly, “I wonder if it can be both.”

She considers this for a long moment then answers him simply, “I suppose it depends on your perspective.”

The ghost of a smile flickers into his eyes at that and he shifts a little nearer to her, apparently in response.

“So,” she begins, her tone becoming a little more business-like as she does so, “What’s bothering you?”

He blinks down at her in very genuine bemusement at this, as though utterly uncertain as to where this observation is coming from. Sighing deeply she shakes her head, jostling him lightly in reproach, “I know you well enough to know that,” she tells him flatly, “You’re so tense it looks as though someone’s forcibly removed all the elastic from your muscles,” she explains for him, “And you’ve isolated yourself at the top of the tallest tower for miles around,” she adds, gesturing vaguely around them.

Shifting in discomfort he says unevenly, “I just wanted a little peace and quiet,” he tries to explain, looking more uneasy by the moment, “Polis is spectacular,” he puts in, sounding mildly flustered, “But it’s big and busy, always moving, always with something new happening and I...” he trails off irritably, dragging his finger roughly through his hair as he does so.

“And you were feeling claustrophobic,” she finishes for him, drawing his eyes to her once more.

He nods slowly in agreement, seeing that she understands, and then murmurs cautiously, looking away out into the distance again, “I wanted a little time to myself to think.”

She nods and pauses a beat before she glances up at him and prompts carefully, “About what?”

He crosses his arms over his chest and is silent for so long she begins to think that he won’t answer but at last he turns to face her properly and says, “This truce...It looks like peace; it’s easy to think that it _is_ real peace but it’s...” he stops, choosing his words more carefully, “Fragile at best,” he says finally, “There’s a tension in everything we’ve seen and done here. Something feels off to me, I don’t like it.”

She stares at him for a long moment after this confession, startled by the candid revelations and not sure what to say until finally she murmurs tautly, “What are you saying Marcus? You think this is a trap or-?”

He shakes his head quickly to try and soothe her fears, “No, not a trap. But I think an alliance of this nature...It won’t take much for things to shift, for the balance to break and the truce to fall apart and then...”

And then she knows, he doesn’t need to put the consequences into words and nor does she but she finds the words spilling out into the quiet tower room where only he can hear them, “Then we’d be at war. Again.”

The old scars on her legs, a lasting testament to what had happened the last time they became entangled in a war, a reminder she doesn’t need to chill her blood now at the thought of being sucked into another one.

“You think we will.”

It’s not a question and there’s a hard note in her voice as she says it.

“I think it _might,”_ he corrects her quietly, reassuring her not at all with the distinction, “I only wish there was something I could do to make things even a little more certain.”

There’s a glint in his eye that makes her nerves a little more frayed and her muscles a lot more tense as she catches it. Reaching out urgently she grabs his arm and holds on tightly, startling him with the sudden, strong contact, “You can’t, Marcus,” she insists, shocked at the cracks breaking through her voice, “There’s nothing you can do. You can’t put stitches in a fatal wound and expect everything to just be okay because you tried, it’s not worth the blood you’ll end up with on your hands.”

He seems startled and taken aback at the vehemence in her tone, “Abby-“ he tries quietly but she speaks over him, jabbing him hard in the chest in her agitation.

 “Don’t do anything stupid, Marcus.” she orders him starkly, feeling herself shaking slightly.

He looks a little indignant at this and there’s a definite coolness in his voice when he asks, “Like what?”

“Like trying to stall the inevitable at the expense of your life,” she snaps bluntly, all thought of delicacy now forgotten in her concern.

He’s quiet for so long her sense of foreboding increases and the fear chewing at the fringes of her soul deepens to the heart of it. The lack of a snap response from him tells her he’s considering and has been thinking about this before now.

“But if I could do something that ensured peace,” he murmurs quietly, his eyes strangely even and calm composed to the blazing intensity of her own gaze, “wouldn’t that be worth it?” he asks, his voice now deadly soft, a grim, humourless smile half lifting the corners of his lips as he repeats words from a thousand years ago; words she’d hoped never to hear again from him; words that still haunt her, “Salvation comes at a price, Abby.”

Snatching up his hand she grips it tightly between hers, “Everything comes at a price, Marcus,” she tells him, her brittle nerves in danger of breaking at the slightest provocation, pitching her into a panic, “At some point you have to decide what price is too high to pay,” stepping in and gazing keenly up at him she squeezes his hand and says quietly, “I know what’s too high. I know _that’s_ too high.”

Seeing him now, up close like this, she can see the toll the threat of war has already taken on him. He’s drawn, with dark shadows under his eyes, his skin having acquired a pale, greyish tinge to it.

“You’re scaring me, Marcus,” she tells him softly, feeling a faint tremble flutter through her, “People rely on you; you have to start looking after yourself before you try and look after them.”

He snorts at that and, clearly trying to light things between them, says, “You can talk, climbing all those stairs just to find me.”

But she’s beyond the point that she can casually shake all of this off and move on and she grips his arm more tightly still as though she’s about to fall, “I’m serious, Marcus,” she waits until his eyes meet hers once more before telling him firmly, “I need you.”

It’s more honest and vulnerable than she would have allowed herself to be with almost anyone else but she needed to say it and more than that, she needed him to hear it. To her relief; he does.

Pausing a moment he opens then closes his mouth several times before he steps in and gently puts his arms around her, cradling her in close to him, one hand on her head, the other on her back, pressing her against him. The sudden, unexpected embrace takes her aback for a brief span of heartbeats then she relaxes into him and hugs him in return.

She has a vague awareness of him murmuring thickly above her, “I’m here, Abby, I’m not going anywhere, it’s okay,” but for a long time all there is is the silent, warm comfort of being in his arms.

There’s an intimate peace that settles over her at being held like this again. It’s been so long since anyone has done so and she finds herself gripping very tightly onto the back of his jacket and burrowing her face against his chest as that realisation hits her full force.

With his arms sheltering her against the world for a moment, for just this moment, she allows herself to be a little less than strong, a little less than invincible and invulnerable the way she’s had to be since Jake died. She lets herself be small and scared and overcome while he supports her and holds her up in his arms, letting no-one see the cracks in her foundations and that’s okay.

 They were both present at the birth of each other’s demons, there’s nothing hidden beneath her surface that he hasn’t seen before, nothing she needs to work to hide from him. He knows the reason for all of the dark shadows that shifts in her eyes in moments like this, more than a few of his have danced with them on the fringes of madness, she trusts that they’re safe in his hands.

After a long time she steels and armours herself one more and draws away slightly. She stays close however, even as he moves back too and he seems to sense her need to linger and remain bound to some part of the comfort he gives her because he leaves one hand wrapped surely around her shoulders even as she slides hers around his chest, keeping her close to him.

Side by side their bodies still partially entwined they stand in sentinel silence until the horizon has swallowed the last of the sun and left them with nothing but darkness broken only by a faint smattering of stars already visible in the grey gloom that now envelopes the world and everything in it, the shadow of war spreading across the ashes of a land ravaged by flames, seeking the spark to ignite wildfire once more.

****

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
